Right, Wrong, and the Element of Risk
by blue.but.harmless
Summary: [ONESHOT] It would be dishonest to say that Teddy and Victoire were best friends before they were . . . Well. Before they were what they were when they were caught snogging on Platform 9 by James Potter at his most insufferable. There are so many "they were best friends first until the one fateful day when everything changed" stories. This is not one of them.


**Right, Wrong, and the Element of Risk**

_**Disclaimer: **__If you're keeping up with my other story, you'll know that I usually do this thing where I write funny and/or somewhat clever disclaimers. But frankly, this story is very much a bbh-tries-to-overcome-writer's-block-by-writing-different-characters kind of story, so my frustration level is high and my cleverness level is low. I'm not J.K. Rowling. I'm not even British. Characters, places, and even a couple major plot points don't belong to me. But some of the other stuff does, so please play nice!_

It would be dishonest to say that Teddy Lupin and Victoire Weasley were best friends before they were . . . Well. Before they were what they were when they were caught snogging on Platform 9 ¾ by James Potter at his most insufferable.

There are so many "they were best friends first until the one fateful day when everything changed" stories. This is not one of them.

This is a story about right and wrong. It starts with a game of strip poker. It's not very often a story starts with a game of strip poker and ends well, but there's a first time for everything. And, actually, it doesn't really start with a game of strip poker. It starts almost seventeen years _before_ a game of strip poker, but if Homer could start _in media res_, it's good enough for this story too. Plus, fifteen year old boys are usually going through that terrible angsty phase and are just completely miserable to be around, let alone narrate.

Anyways.

_**bbh bbh **__**bbh bbh **__**bbh bbh **__**bbh bbh **__**bbh bbh **__**bbh bbh **__**bbh bbh **__**bbh bbh **__**bbh bbh **__**bbh bbh **_

"'S a flish!" Renny crowed triumphantly. "A fish! A fuss?"

"A flush," Victoire suggested quietly.

"A flush!" Renny agreed. "I get the chips!" She leaned forward eagerly and swept the chips from the center of the table into her corner. Several clattered to the ground. Four pairs of eyes wavered in her direction.

"Renny," Teddy began, then lapsed into silence.

"Renny," Daniel said, rolling his eyes, "We're playing strip poker." He reached for the firewhiskey and took a large sip without flinching. "We're not playing with chips. It's clothning. Cloths. Clorths. Not chips."

"But there were chips on the table!"

"Those were for eating," Genna said petulantly. "And they were crisps. What're you, Anmerrcan? Amernic?"

"American," Victoire enunciated.

Renny spread her hands and giggled. The other four met eyes briefly and sighed, deciding which item of clothing to remove next. Teddy, cheeks burning ferociously, removed his tie and tried desperately not to watch as Victoire and Genna unbuttoned their shirts.

This had all been Daniel's idea, as were most of the completely brilliant things in Teddy's life. Daniel was Teddy's only roommate who was also currently (and perpetually) single, although he preferred it that way, while Teddy's internal jury was still out on the matter. Teddy had no idea how Daniel had convinced three fifth-year Ravenclaws that playing strip poker was a matter of necessity the night before exams started. As a point of fact, Teddy didn't _want_ to know how Daniel had convinced three fifth-year Ravenclaws that playing strip poker was a matter of necessity the night before exams started. The fact that Daniel managed to bring about completely amazing, impossible, and fantastic things on a regular basis was, frankly, the reason Teddy kept hanging around with him. Daniel didn't have a lot of other redeeming qualities, when it came right down to it.

But this. This was very, very redeeming.

Teddy held his tie in his hands and looked at it, mostly so that he wouldn't look elsewhere. The red and gold stripes were starting to swirl, which Aunt Hermione had told him at Easter hols last year meant he'd had quite enough to drink, and if he had any more, Uncle Harry would certainly notice that some of his Firewhiskey was missing. He'd expected Hermione to yell at him when she found him very drunk in the library at Uncle Harry and Aunt Ginny's house. He'd expected her to be offended that he was getting drunk off stolen Firewhiskey in front of the books, actually. But she'd taken one look at the expression on his face, and said, "5th year, right?" and when he nodded, she'd sat down to join him. "This time of year must be hard for you," she'd said after a while, "Harry always gets glum around his birthday." She'd talked to him for a while after that, and when she'd left, she took the Firewhiskey with her. But she never yelled at him.

Teddy threw the tie aside and rearranged his face into a less angsty expression. He was a sixth year, now, and there was no call to be angsty during strip poker, especially when there were girls who were not good at poker. Teddy was very good at poker, which is why this all probably felt slightly unfair. He was rather past the point of caring, though. He still had most of his clothing on, which was, in his opinion, a good thing. He thought of himself as rather scrawny, particularly in comparison to Daniel. Daniel was playing to lose, which, all right, fine, Teddy understood. If Teddy looked like Daniel, he'd probably play to lose too (_You could look like Daniel,_ the morally deficient part of Teddy's brain whispered, _anytime you want. _Teddy still retained enough sobriety to know that was a bad idea for so, so many reasons).

Genna was playing to lose as well, or so it seemed from the way she'd been eyeing Daniel and not her cards the entire night. Renny was playing for the hell of it, and Victoire was . . . well, Teddy had no idea why Victoire was here, actually.

As a rule, Victoire didn't break them. The rules. She had rather a lot of Fleur in her that way, from what Teddy understood. Whenever she and Dominique got in trouble, it was always Dom who got in trouble for doing a thing, and Victoire who got in trouble for not stopping her.

Victoire always did the right thing, though Teddy wasn't quite sure how she always knew what the right thing was. It was probably why they'd never been terribly close growing up; Teddy always seemed to be just slightly wrong, and Victoire was perfect. He'd grown up with her, of course, in the same way he'd grown up with the rest of the Weasley-Potter clan, which was to say that he was rather the figure on the borders watching all of them grow up. Not to say that he loved them any less for it; he adored them all – Fred with his stolidity and his secret humor, James with his swagger, Dom with her wiliness, Louis with his pastiche, and so on and so forth down the line of cousins to little Lily, who was just turning out to be frankly weird. And Victoire, with her assuredness, which Teddy could only assume came from knowing that she was always right. She was right when she'd said she knew, at age eight, that Ravenclaw would be the House for her, even though she was the first Weasley in generations not to be sorted into Gryffindor. She was right on most of her exams, Merlin knew, judging by Uncle Bill's proud display of her marks after every year. Teddy wondered what it would be like to go through life always being right, always being sure. And then he wondered again why Victoire was here.

Strip poker, he thought fervently, was probably _not_ right - it had to be against several school rules. Especially as they were playing in the library after hours. And yet, here she was. And over there was her shirt. _Merlin_.

Teddy tried not to watch Victoire across the poker table and failed. He'd been failing at that for a while now. Specifically, something going on three years. It was her hair, he told himself. Her hair was very shiny. That was definitely it. Victoire's hair was the first hair he'd consciously tried to mimic, after he'd discovered at the age of seven that he could purposefully change his hair color and not just accidentally change it based on his moods ("A walking mood ring!" Uncle Harry had called him, claiming that the convenience of being able to read Teddy's moods outweighed his moral obligation to set him straight about his Metamorphmagus capabilities). Teddy's natural hair color was just sort of brownish, to his chagrin, but Victoire's was perfect – blond and shiny and miles and miles long. It was definitely the hair.

Or, you know, things below the hair that were . . . um, jiggling. Merlin.

"I deal next," Daniel said, gathering up the cards. He shuffled almost gracefully, despite the Firewhiskey he'd been downing, and passed out the cards with a grin that showed a remarkable amount of teeth. Renny giggled, Genna matched him smirk for smirk, and Victoire was staring someplace over Teddy's shoulder. "There are better things to be watching, Weasley," Daniel murmured, leaning towards her.

"Hmmm," Victoire said noncommittally.

"I'll say." Genna fanned her cards and shook her head, which caused a chain reaction in which other things shook and Teddy suddenly had to remind himself to shut his mouth. It occurred to him, rather fuzzily, that Daniel was paying much less attention to Genna than he'd have expected.

Teddy held his cards up, but watched Victoire. She wrinkled her nose, which could mean almost anything. She tapped her fingers, which could also mean almost anything, especially as she was half-French, and as far as he could tell, Aunt Fleur's hands had an entire language of their own. Teddy was torn between wishing good luck for Victoire, and wishing that more of her clothing would conveniently disappear. He didn't even know what his own hand was. He should probably check that.

When he looked back up, Daniel was whispering something in Victoire's ear that made her flush. She shook her head slightly, and Daniel grinned.

"Later, then," he said, definitely not looking at her face. Genna pursed her lips and swayed.

Victoire won that round, for which Teddy was suddenly grateful, even as he had to take off his trousers. Daniel was down to his pants and his tie; Teddy was sure he'd left the tie on just for effect. He was beginning to have inexplicably uncharitable thoughts about his roommate. Genna was beginning to lean more precariously in Daniel's direction.

And then it was Victoire's turn to deal. Teddy stared fixedly at his knees. She had to stand up to reach across the table. Teddy stared at his buttons resolutely_. This is_ _Victoire_, he told himself. _You've known her since she was born._ Uncle Bill would kill him if he could see him right now. Teddy looked up unintentionally; Victoire's bra had black lace on it, and she had a freckle right under her left collarbone. Death was probably worth it.

Victoire moved to sit back down. "You will move your hand," she said quietly. Daniel smirked, and Teddy almost smacked him, which would have been a rather tremendous achievement from across the table, particularly given the fact that Teddy didn't know if he could clearly see Daniel's face, let alone muster the coordination necessary to smack it.

"Relax, Vicky," Daniel said. No one called her Vicky. "We're all friends here." Teddy had stopped appreciating Daniel's miraculous abilities to make the impossible, and had started planning his untidily early demise. Genna giggled and fell off her chair.

Daniel yawned ostentatiously and reached his free arm around Victoire's shoulders, fanning his cards too close to his face with the other hand. Victoire rolled her eyes and plucked his arm off her bare shoulder like a flea.

"Are you able to stop yourself, _gosse_?" she asked him in that quiet, dangerous tone that would have had Teddy (and Dom, and Louis, and Fred, at the very least) running far, far away. Victoire was beautiful and poised and always in control; she did not get angry. She did, on occasion, get vicious. And it was always a good idea to be far away when that happened, because, Merlin help them all, she was _creative_.

"I hafta tell you," Daniel slurred, resting his hand on her bare leg, "Most girls ask me not to."

For a moment, it looked as though Victoire were going to do something foolish. Teddy saw it before it happened – the flash in her eyes, the sudden tension in her shoulder, the shift in her weight. Then she breathed in and out slowly, once, and by some miracle didn't slap Daniel. Teddy, generally not a big proponent of physical violence, thought she probably should have.

Victoire's blue eyes met his across the table. "I find that I'm not feeling well," Victoire said. "I'll go to bed now. _Bon chance_ with your game."

"Ricky! Err . . . Vicky!" Daniel called, stumbling over his feet in an effort to get up quickly. Victoire had collected her clothes and was striding through the shelves of books. Teddy wondered if she planned on putting her clothes back on before she left the library. Daniel followed her unsteadily, leaving Teddy with Renny and the still floor-bound Genna.

Teddy looked around awkwardly. His vision caught up with his neck a couple seconds later, and the room whirled a bit.

"We're not playing ann-anymore, Lu-hoooopin," Renny slurred. Genna, seemingly beyond the point of speech, giggled in what sounded like affirmation.

"S'fine with me," he muttered.

"Y've only got eyes for Victoire 'nyhows," Renny observed. Teddy had no response. "S'ovvious."

Teddy was sure his hair was as flamingly red as his cheeks at this point. He sort of lost control of his Metamorphmagus abilities when he was drunk. And emotional. He shrugged a bit, and wobbled on his chair.

"Why'd you let Daniel g'off with'er?" Renny asked.

"I don't think he's _getting off_ w- " Teddy was saved finishing what would have been an epically petty retort by a loud thud. He and Renny instinctively and haphazardly rushed towards the noise. Well, Renny rushed towards the noise, and Teddy tripped a few times because he'd forgotten that he'd left his trousers round his ankles.

Genna sat on the floor and waved after them. At least she'd accepted her role.

When they found Victoire and Daniel, she still hadn't fully dressed. She had her shirt on, but the buttons were still undone, and Teddy gaped again before he followed her glare and the direction of her wand down to the floor, where Daniel lay all of a heap.

"Omimerl – _Victoire!_" Renny exclaimed shrilly, "Are you all right?"

"Is _she_ all right?" Teddy asked incredulously.

"It's not what it looks like," Victoire said, presumably to Renny, because Teddy had no idea what it was supposed to not look like.

"He didn't - ?" Renny asked, and Victoire promptly shook her head. "Then why . . .?" But Victoire just shook her head again.

"What in the name of – " Teddy started to say, but Victoire was already walking away. Her trousers were slung over one arm. Shooting a completely unapologetic look at Renny (he was pretty sure she could manage to resuscitate Daniel without growing any extra appendages; she was a Ravenclaw, after all), he dashed after Victoire. "Wha' happened?"

"I hexed your friend."

"Yeah. Well, sorta friend. Why?" Victoire pivoted mid-stride and just _looked_ at him. Teddy processed. "Oh no, did he – oh, Merlin, he did, didn't he? That . . . that lout, I can't – "

"He didn't," Victoire said, still just _looking_. It was very dark, and everything seemed blurred except Victoire. Teddy wasn't sure whether he felt more or less drunk than he had five minutes prior. The bookshelves were standing still, at least, but his head seemed to be spinning, and he seemed to be very out of breath.

"Oh. Er. Then –"

"He insulted you," she said simply. It struck Teddy suddenly that Victoire might be less drunk than he was. That is, she seemed to be wobbling as a whole, but her, er, wobbly parts weren't . . . wobbling, well, individually. This led Teddy to believe her to be standing still. His brain must be doing the wobbling. He snapped his eyes back up to her face, which seemed to be regarding him very carefully.

"Listen," he began.

"It's good he's not your friend. He's not very nice," Victoire said.

"Listen."

"Why do you hang around him if you're not friends?"

"Listen, Victoire, d'you think you could maybe button your shirt?"

"_Quoi?"_

"Whatever conversation you're trying to have, it's fine. I'd love to have it. But, your shirt . . . I can't . . ." Teddy desperately kept his eyes trained over her head. _Books books books lots of boring books and not boo-_

"There," Victoire was saying. She'd fastened all of three buttons, which, all right, definitely limited Teddy's view but failed to totally remedy the situation, which was that she still wasn't wearing trousers and he could still see part of her stomach and her hips and . . . After traveling what felt like a long distance, his eyes met Victoire's.

"Yeah. Thanks. So, er, Daniel didn't –"

Victoire snorted. "As though I couldn't handle that drunken Gryffindor buffoon. _Mais, non_."

"That's . . . er . . . that's good, then, right?"

Victoire leaned back against the shelf behind her, and Teddy was struck by the thought that the books were currently seeing more action than he had in months. Not that he had never – you know. Just that, you know, recently, there's been a bit of a – what did Daniel call it? A "dry spell." Well, and it didn't help that he couldn't stop looking at _Victoire_, who was practically his _cousin_, and he could swear it was getting worse because he kept _finding _her places and _seeing_ her just everywhere and thinking about how utterly _insane_ he was, but Merlin, she was brilliant and gorgeous and _right in front of him all the time_. Right now.

"Don't you want to know what he said?" she asked.

"Who?" Because he could not stop thinking about those books.

"Your not-friend." She tucked one arms behind her, shifting her shirt so he could see the whole of her hip, and even with three buttons done and in the dark, Teddy's brain was non compos mentis.

"My . . ., " his hand shook as he ran it through his hair, "My . . . Daniel?"

"_Oui_."

"Er. Yeah, all right – y'know, he's not really my friend, right?" Teddy wasn't even sure what he'd just agreed to, but if it meant he could stay here and she could be there and she wasn't even _attempting _to put on her trousers, he was just fine with it. He thought he was closer to her now than he'd been seconds ago. He worried momentarily that he was falling forward, but no, nothing was whirling and Victoire was still in the same place, so he must have just moved a bit. He could see the freckle underneath her left collarbone.

Victoire reached out and touched his top button, and Teddy felt it – that gentle pressure – felt it through his toes and in his knees. Victoire gently took hold of the shirt just below his collar and drew him down to her.

"You said that already," she whispered.

And the next thing she did was kiss him.

Her lips were – well, they were so soft, was the first thing he noticed. And they fit his, and he was utterly afraid to move a centimeter, but she sighed into his mouth and he _felt it, _felt her breath on his lips, and he reached out to touch her face, and she wrapped her hand around the back of his neck and pulled him closer and – _Merlin_, that was her tongue.

Teddy wanted, more than anything, to never stop. But – well, Victoire was drunk, wasn't she? She was drunk, and here he was taking advantage of that. Of her. He was just as bad as Daniel. No – worse. Daniel hadn't actually . . .

"Victoire." He pulled away, "Wait, Victoire," he felt a little as though he'd just run a mile. In circles. "Is this . . . I mean, you . . . "

She furrowed her eyebrows and pulled him forward again.

"Wait! No, I mean . . . Victoire, I – you're a Weasley."

"_Idiot_. _Oui_."

"And I'm . . . you know, um, ish." He was trying to be coherent, and it all made sense in his head, but Victoire was just looking at him with one eyebrow raised, and he'd never mastered that expression even as a Metamorphmagus, but her eyebrow had _meaning_ and it meant she had no idea what he was trying to say. "You know. Family-ish."

"You're not my cousin, Teddy," she said softly.

"No, I know! Oh, Merlin, I know. But – I mean, y'can't. We have to – to want this." _He _wanted this. They were still sharing air, his hand still wrapped in her hair, and it was very difficult for him to be articulate. "It's. . . it's all wrong. This is a Firewhiskey thing."

"You taste like Firewhiskey," she said in a low voice, and Teddy groaned. Victoire pulled his hips into hers.

"Victoire, I'm . . . I'm serious! We can't – like this."

She pulled away. Gave him a small smile that made him want, more than anything, to close the distance between them – but this was wrong, and Victoire was always, always right. It couldn't happen like this, not when they'd both had too much to drink and the books were wavering and he knew what he wanted but _what if she regretted it_?

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Teddy awoke with a pounding headache, a dry mouth, and no idea where he was. This . . . this was probably his bed. The colors were definitely right. Teddy was very sure – well, say eighty-five percent sure – the Gryffindor's bed hangings were red. These were red. _Red_ was a very solid, coherent thought that wormed past the headache and stuck with him.

Someone drew back the red hangings and sat on the bed.

"Red." Teddy muttered.

"Teddy?" Victoire's voice floated down from somewhere very far away, and suddenly Teddy was looking up at her blue eyes and the red hangings were closing again very, very loudly. Everything was loud. Why was everything loud? "_Bon_, you're awake."

Teddy looked up at her and tried to work up to the last thing he could remember, and – _oh, shite. Oh, Merlin._ If possible, his headache was suddenly worse.

"Oh no," he groaned, scrambling to sit up against the headboard. "Oh, bollocks, Victoire, I am so . . . I can't even . . . I-"

"I'm sorry, Teddy," she said.

"You're . . . you're _what?_" He must have misheard.

"Sorry." Victoire took a deep breath. "I came to apologize. It was wrong of me to corner you like that."

Teddy was completely speechless. She was _sorry?_ She was _wrong? _He reevaluated his remaining memories. It felt as though he were processing very slowly.

She took another breath, sighed out shakily. She tucked her hair back. "I did not mean to take advantage."

_Her_ take advantage of _him_? "Victoire – "

"I'm not used to being wrong," she said, meeting his eyes.

Teddy remembered little of what he'd said, but he remembered what they'd done, and . . . well, he wasn't exactly the egotistical type, but he was pretty sure she'd started it. And he'd stopped her. He wanted to bang his head against something, but it was already ached as though he had. If she thought she was wrong – if she was apologizing – he was such an _idiot_. Even when he was trying to be right, he messed it up.

His mouth was very, very dry. He could fix this? Maybe, just maybe -

He touched her hand. "You weren't."

She did that thing again where she just looked at him.

And Teddy froze. He couldn't really breathe properly, and he thought his hand might be shaking again, which was stupid.

But suddenly it didn't matter because Victoire was kissing him _again_.

It was even better when the room wasn't spinning. And it felt – oh, Merlin, her lips on his - it felt _right._

After a time she pulled away, but only enough to rest her forehead against his. He could almost feel her smiling, and his thumb traced her jaw. Half of his brain wanted to pull her back in _right now_, but the other half was a bit stuck on – "Victoire."

"Hmmm?"

"How did you get into Gryffindor tower?"

She was close enough that her eyes were slightly out of focus, but he could see perfectly the impish grin that passed across her lips. "I guessed the password," she replied, and he felt more than saw her shrug. "I must have been right."

He felt himself grinning back at her. "You're _always_ right," he said, and pulled her in again. Maybe, he thought, being right was catching. He certainly hoped so; he could get used to this.

_**Author's Note:**__ Thanks for reading! This is my first time writing from a male perspective, so any feedback on that in particular would be very much appreciated. Well, really, any feedback in general is very much appreciated. Reviews/favorites/follows are warm cookies on a cold night in winter :) Stay warm, everyone!_


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